


Removal

by Shortandblonde



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Mentions of Character Death, One Shot, Predictions for Episode IX, Reflection, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shortandblonde/pseuds/Shortandblonde
Summary: Kylo thinks often about the future that he saw when he and Rey had touched hands. From across galaxies they’d reached, searching for someone else who knew what they felt, who understood what they were.





	Removal

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick one shot I wrote after seeing The Last Jedi. Enjoy.

      Kylo thinks often about the future that he saw when he and Rey had touched hands. From across galaxies they’d reached, searching for someone else who knew what they felt, who understood who they were. When he touched her hand he saw a future he hadn’t realized he’d be so desperate for. For her, he’d witnessed a future at his side. They’d be equals, above whatever it was that plagued them now, ready to take on whatever plagued them in the future. The first order, the rebellion, the Jedi and the Sith all were gone, leaving room for something new. A new beginning, with new dreams and new stars and new hope. A galaxy truly worth what they risked to fight for it. Somewhere in the middle of it all were he and Rey, free of guilt and shame, free of fear and restraint, free of.. Everything. Free in the truest sense of the word. Nothing would hold them back.

      He wonders, too, what Rey could have seen for him. When he pictures himself in the Light, he’s standing beside his mother, tall and proud in a way that he hasn’t been in a long time. He sees his father, wearing a lopsided grin and confidence shining in his eyes. Nothing feels unsure or unstable. Nothing is unbalanced and there’s no reason to question anything that he does. Ben Solo is his name again, and Kylo Ren is nothing more than a bad dream. Did Snoke steal those images from him, he wonders, or did he show Rey something different? Maybe she had seen the two of them side by side at the front of the rebellion, staring down Hux and Phasma and the whole ugly lot of them. Maybe, together, they’d fought until there was nothing left. Nothing but a galaxy where peace could reign, where they could go on to live hard, happy lives of simplicity. The kind of life Rey might have lived had she left Jakku under different circumstances, on her own terms.

      Something about the room he sits in feels different, suddenly. Something settles around him like a weight, blocking out the distant sounds of stormtroopers marching through the hallways and the low hum of the ship’s inner workings. It doesn’t hit him until he glances up, and on the side of the room she sits, hatred fuelling her stare.

      “I thought Snoke was the one controlling this,” he says, words slipping out before he really registers her presence. “You shouldn’t be here.”

      “Oh, well, I am,” she says, sneering as she stands. “I have a.. message, for you.”

      “I don’t follow.”

      Rey looks different from when he last saw her, he thinks. Weary or off-center, wearing clothes more befitting of a rebel pilot than the jedi Skywalker claimed she would be. She’s dirty, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her otherwise. Raw, harsh, angry emotion clings to her like a stench. She marches forwards until she looms over him, and it’s then he notes the tears in her eyes. “Your mother is dead,” she says, offering no sympathy- not that he’d expect her to. “I just thought you might want to know.”

      It takes a moment for the words to reach him, and he thinks back on the odd quiet of the past day, on the moment he’d woken the night before in a cold sweat and blind panic. He looks up at Rey, reaches out instinctively, a question on his lips, but she’s gone before he can ask it. It’s odd, he thinks, that he’d rather face her wrath, her hard-to-hear words, than the loneliness that follows.

\-----

      Time passes slowly. He goes where he’s needed, gives orders he can’t remember, and listens closely to the silence when silence comes calling. He half expects to turn at any point to find his mother’s ghost, readied with disappointed, angry words aimed like weapons towards him. He half wishes he would. Some part of him hopes that she or someone like her will show up to scold him back into the Light. He knows it’s that part of him that he needs to get rid of.

     “Supreme Leader,” Hux says, grimacing as if the title were acid on his tongue, “We need a plan of action. We’ve been doing nothing but sit here and twiddle our thumbs while the resistance undoubtedly prepares for our attack.”

      “We will move soon,” Kylo says, and he knows that he will have to.

      “We need to move _now.”_ Hux steps in front of Kylo, shoulders back with authority, expression rife with anger. “If you will not give the order, I will.”

      “Who is the one leading the empire, General Hux?” He asks, forcing himself to relax, flexing his right hand as if he were making a point. He is defending his position, he thinks, as he reaches out to grip Hux’s throat. He is defending his authority. Hux swallows, takes a breath, and Kylo thinks that he shouldn’t need to make up excuses to do what he is doing. Snoke would think him weak for needing an excuse.

      “You are, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, fighting not to sneer. Kylo relaxes his hand, watches Hux briskly walk off. _I should kill that man_ , Kylo thinks, _but what would be the point?_

\-----

      Days have passed, he is sure, since the last he time he saw Rey. Maybe that is for the best. Things are simpler when she isn’t so present in his mind. He doesn’t have to think too hard on the acts he commits, or the lives he takes. He can pretend that he never had a choice in what he became, even when he knows that he did. Some part of him, the part she claimed to have seen what seems like years ago, wants to think that he isn’t too far gone, that he can still change all the wrong he’s done. It’s another part of him he knows he needs to get rid of.

      Hux comes to him, reporting that rumors say General Leia is dead. Kylo can’t find it in him to smile when he gives the order he’d been waiting to give.  
“Ready the troops,” he says to Hux. “They’ll be weak without her. We move on the Resistance _now.”_


End file.
